Pentagon struggles to provide accurate numbers for deployed troops

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(The Daily Mail) The number of troops on the ground in Iraq and Syria are far more than the figure given by the Pentagon, according to a report.

A quarterly report from the Defense Manpower Data Center released in September found that there were 1,720 American troops in Syria.

That figure is more than three times the 503 troops that a US military spokesman from the Pentagon shared with reporters in a quarterly report.

That same report also shared that there were actually 8,992 American troops based in Iraq which is close to 3,500 more than the 5,262 number given by the Department of Defense.

When pressed with the numbers, the Pentagon downplayed the figures and how official they actually were.

‘The DMDC numbers are not the official deployment count, the numbers that we provided – the approximately 500 in Syria and approximately 5,000 in Iraq is the official deployment count,’ said Col. Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, to ABC News.

‘There are several other things that go into those numbers, it is a snapshot in time and have to also consider that number is quarterly… our official deployment count has not changed.’

When asked about the discrepancies, Manning said: ‘We are not at a point where we can make an announcement (on troop numbers) that differs from what we have previously stated.’